chownah wrote:Thanks for posting this. After reading it I went out and found his blog and read some of it so that I could reduce my own assumption coefficient. Now I am mostly in agreement with your assessment that he is skilled in statistical analysis.....or at least he is skillful in picking apart statistical analyses. I don't have the time or interest to develop a full understanding of all that he has blogged but it seems clear that he has taken on the task of pointing out inadequacies in the existing body of data and the current state of the analysis of climatological data and is doing so with thoroughness and vigor rarely found anywhere........it is rare to find someone with what seems to be such a focused passion for statistical analysis. Having sampled his blog entries I think that he is doing science a service by blogging. He is holding some feet to the fire so of course there is some squeeling..........but for those who are not aware of how science works, it is usual for serious scientists to solicit contrary opinions and most would be glad to have his input. I am sure that there are many climatologists who are glad for his input but since the ranks of climatology is filled with mere humans it is inevitable that some will whine a bit.

Also, very importantly, I do get the impression that he is NOvT politicaly motivated like many people mentioned in this thread......or if he is so motivated at least he is sticking with rational criticism.....it is hard to know just exactly what motivates a person.chownah

In 2002, McIntyre became interested in climate science after a leaflet from the Canadian government warning of the dangers of global warming was delivered to his residence. McIntyre states that he noticed discrepancies in climate science papers that reminded him of the false prospectus that had duped investors involved in the Bre-X gold mining scandal.[7]

The Canadian government pamphlets were based on the IPCC Third Assessment Report section which prominently displayed the hockey stick graph based on the 1999 reconstruction by Mann, Bradley and Hughes (MBH99). McIntyre began studying Mann's research which had produced the graph, and met Ross McKitrick.[16] They co-authored two papers disputing the data and methodology set out in the Mann, Bradley and Hughes 1998 journal article (MBH98).[17]

There's more there, if you want to look, but the heart of it is that he was first motivated by his (uninformed, gut-level) opposition to mainstream climate science. And that's where he has been coming from ever since. (He may not have had any choice, actually, since any amateur who announces his existence by jumping up and down shrieking that the experts are wrong, and is himself proved wrong, is hardly likely to be welcomed by those experts if he has a change of heart.)In any event, no change of heart has ever been visible: he has kept on, as you say, "pointing out inadequacies in the existing body of data and the current state of the analysis of climatological data and is doing so with thoroughness and vigor rarely found anywhere." If all he's looking for is dirt, he'll never find gold - let alone bring it back and share it.

Kim

[edited for clarity]

Kim OHara,I'll take your last comment and respond to it first because I think it is the most important issue in our exchange. In the world of ethical science a scientist wants other scientist to point out errors. An ethical scientist will openly point out weak places in their research so that others will help in finding and correcting problems. An ethical scientist welcomes criticism if it is directed toward improving research. Most people are not aware of this.....probably because a lot of scientists have egos which get in the way of their manifestation of ethics and scientific ethics is not spoken of much.

Finding errors in the data and it's analysis IS finding gold. In ethical science the truth IS gold even if it is an inconvenient truth (if I may borrow the phrase).

I think that perhaps you have misunderstood his initial reaction to the IPCC phamplet. Seems to me that he was reacting to a graph which was perported to depict an analysis of a body of data......that graph being of a shape so extreme for a statistical analysis that it piqued his interest to see if it was possible that the shape was correct. I could very well be wrong on this but I have looked around a very little bit more and have not found anything pointing to some emotional reaction to mainstream climate science other than that it seems to be underpinned in at least some places by weak data analysis (my estimation of his opinion) and inadequate or faulty data(again my estimation of his opinion). If I am reading him accurately then I do not fault him for what he is doing as to me it seems he is benefitting the search for better science. But if you can show me a link to some evidence that he has a political ax to grind then please do let me know. Has he been active in disputing data in other politically charged areas of science?

Is "jumping up and down shrieking" in your mind or did it really happen?

Also, did you say he has been proven to be wrong? If so can you show me a link that points to that? Did he admit to being wrong?

chownah wrote:Kim OHara,I'll take your last comment and respond to it first because I think it is the most important issue in our exchange. In the world of ethical science a scientist wants other scientist to point out errors. An ethical scientist will openly point out weak places in their research so that others will help in finding and correcting problems. An ethical scientist welcomes criticism if it is directed toward improving research. Most people are not aware of this.....probably because a lot of scientists have egos which get in the way of their manifestation of ethics and scientific ethics is not spoken of much.

Finding errors in the data and it's analysis IS finding gold. In ethical science the truth IS gold even if it is an inconvenient truth (if I may borrow the phrase).

I think that perhaps you have misunderstood his initial reaction to the IPCC phamplet. Seems to me that he was reacting to a graph which was perported to depict an analysis of a body of data......that graph being of a shape so extreme for a statistical analysis that it piqued his interest to see if it was possible that the shape was correct. I could very well be wrong on this but I have looked around a very little bit more and have not found anything pointing to some emotional reaction to mainstream climate science other than that it seems to be underpinned in at least some places by weak data analysis (my estimation of his opinion) and inadequate or faulty data(again my estimation of his opinion). If I am reading him accurately then I do not fault him for what he is doing as to me it seems he is benefitting the search for better science. But if you can show me a link to some evidence that he has a political ax to grind then please do let me know. Has he been active in disputing data in other politically charged areas of science?

Is "jumping up and down shrieking" in your mind or did it really happen?

Also, did you say he has been proven to be wrong? If so can you show me a link that points to that? Did he admit to being wrong?

chownah

Hi, Chownah,I will do as you did and take your last point first: Yes, he has repeatedly been proven wrong.

More than two dozen reconstructions, using various statistical methods and combinations of proxy records, have supported the broad consensus shown in the original 1998 hockey-stick graph, with variations in how flat the pre-20th century "shaft" appears.[12][13] The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report cited 14 reconstructions, 10 of which covered 1,000 years or longer, to support its strengthened conclusion that it was likely that Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the 20th century were the highest in at least the past 1,300 years.[14] Ten or more subsequent reconstructions, including Mann et al. 2008, have supported these general conclusions.

That's just the end of the first section of the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy but it's enough to support my point.The hockey stick is in good condition. In fact, it has recently been given a much longer shaft, with a climate reconstruction going back 11 000 years - see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/paleoclimate-the-end-of-the-holocene/ which will also bring you up to date on the original model.Has he admitted he was wrong? Not so far as I know, and I think I would know if he had. For the rest, I think you're giving him too much leeway but it's possible that I'm not giving him enough (and I didn't quite say he was jumping up and down and shrieking, I just likened him to someone who was). Would you fight the whole of the scientific establishment, in a field not your own, for ten years (and counting) because a graph "piqued your interest"? No - me neither. And even if his motives weren't originally political, he was enthusiastically supported (and used) by George C. Marshall Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (look them up) among other right wing anti-science groups.Kim

Isn't this the same guy that said the data on the polar ice cap melting was flawed, and posted a video of it snowing at the north pole to prove his point!!!

18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community that has so generously given me so much, sincerely former monk John

Going through the many intellectual posts , there is no denying that every action that we do , however , small or big will have a consequence to the impact of environment and ourselves. However , the environment per se, is very resilient in bounding back and setting things in equilibrium in a matter of time .Probably devoting more time in feeling the environment within us , and its consequential changes by our own actions , will get a multi-dimensional feeling to all that we do .

Once when we were building a koi pond in our home , and after the earth was excavated ,the bed of earth was looking fresh and respiring in the early morning . When the evening came, and i was back home from work , the contractor had poured in concrete PCP over the earth , when i saw this change, i felt the sudden stamping of an elephant on my own chest . It was a difficult moment , reminding me , the inside and the outside are the one and the same .

This post reminds me of a powerfully deep song by Elton John , " The Circle of Life " saying that " you should never take more than you give " . i admit , life is not as easy to live.

sanjay

The Path of Dhamma

The path of Dhamma is no picnic . It is a strenuous march steeply up the hill . If all the comrades desert you , Walk alone ! Walk alone ! with all the Thrill !!

chownah wrote:Kim OHara,Are you familiar with the North Report and what do you think of it?chownah

I had forgotten it, actually, but I looked it up (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Report if anyone else wants to). From this distance it is just one of many enquiries that arose during the hockey stick controversy and validated the hockey stick and the scientists behind it with only minor quibbles. There was a similar sequence of enquiries after Climategate, driven by (mostly) the same people with the same agenda and coming to the same conclusions, i.e. the scientists were doing good work and their conclusions were trustworthy - give or take the occasional percentage point.

Kim OHara,I asked about the North Report because I found it to be a reasonable analysis of the situation at the time of its publication.....and it seems that you have received it well......so......I want to point out that in the report it mentioned that principal component analysis was not recommended as it does introduce a small bias even though that bias is not enough to change the overall meaning of the results. This sides with McIntyre who is the person who brought this up originally I think.

Having looked around some more I am still of the conclusion that McIntyre seems to be mostly questioning the scientific validity of the analytical methods and data (which for me is a legitimate endeavor and to be encouraged) and it is mostly politicians coupled with right wing "think tank" mentality which is distorting both sides of the scientific debate to their own ends. I very well could be wrong and you very well could be right but I think I'll just leave it there.

In keeping with the title of the thread, do you have a link discussing the pros and cons of the more recent data which some have said casts doubt on the magnitude of the warming effect? My view is that too many people try to read too much into short term results and that statistically it should be expected that there will be short term deviations from an overall trend and that is probably what we are seeing......but I really don't know so I would appreciate help on finding a good reference on this as I don't want to wade through all the political poo to find the gold.chownah

chownah wrote:Kim OHara,I asked about the North Report because I found it to be a reasonable analysis of the situation at the time of its publication.....and it seems that you have received it well......so......I want to point out that in the report it mentioned that principal component analysis was not recommended as it does introduce a small bias even though that bias is not enough to change the overall meaning of the results. This sides with McIntyre who is the person who brought this up originally I think.

Having looked around some more I am still of the conclusion that McIntyre seems to be mostly questioning the scientific validity of the analytical methods and data (which for me is a legitimate endeavor and to be encouraged) and it is mostly politicians coupled with right wing "think tank" mentality which is distorting both sides of the scientific debate to their own ends. I very well could be wrong and you very well could be right but I think I'll just leave it there.

Okay. As I said, you might be a bit over-generous to him, I might be a bit over-critical.

chownah wrote:In keeping with the title of the thread, do you have a link discussing the pros and cons of the more recent data which some have said casts doubt on the magnitude of the warming effect? My view is that too many people try to read too much into short term results and that statistically it should be expected that there will be short term deviations from an overall trend and that is probably what we are seeing......but I really don't know so I would appreciate help on finding a good reference on this as I don't want to wade through all the political poo to find the gold.chownah

The IPCC's latest report (find it here http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm) is the gold: a summary of the thinking of about a thousand top scientists with expertise in all aspects of the science, working in an organisation which is over-cautious and extremely risk-averse because (1) it knows it will be savagely criticised for anything which it can't back up with excellent evidence and (2) everything it says has to be agreed by all participating national bodies, including some that are under the thumb of governments who don't want to have to act on climate change. If you want a summary ...Climate State http://climatestate.com/2013/10/03/ipcc-climate-change-report-highlights/ presents a quick video summary, while Greg Laden gives us The IPCC Report in Pictures http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/09/27/the-ipcc-report-in-pictures/, presenting the key graphs with concise comments, e.g. “Most of the sea level rise over recent decades has been from the ocean getting warmer. But in the future expect the larger proportion to be from glaciers melting.” Both are well worth a look, since a picture is worth at least a thousand words. (Some of the comments on Laden’s blog are good, too.) RealClimate gives, as we would expect, quite a technical review of the Report http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/the-new-ipcc-climate-report/. One of its take-away messages is that, “The new IPCC report gives no reason for complacency – even if politically motivated “climate skeptics” have tried to give this impression ahead of its release with frantic PR activities. … Many developments are now considered to be more urgent than in the fourth IPCC report, released in 2007. That the IPCC often needs to correct itself ‘upward’ is an illustration of the fact that it tends to produce very cautious and conservative statements, due to its consensus structure – the IPCC statements form a kind of lowest common denominator on which many researchers can agree.”

Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed "climate skeptics" have seized upon one quite small area of uncertainty and done their damnedest to blow it up into an "it's all fraudulent" anti-narrative. The issue is that global surface temperatures haven't gone up quite as much recently as they did a few years ago. The scientists have two answers, both good but neither proven yet: that the excess heat has been going into the oceans, and/or that normal medium-term weather patterns (El Nino etc) are camouflaging the longer-term trends. SkepticalScience provides a good discussion of the issue at http://www.skepticalscience.com/does-global-warming-pause-mean-what-you-think.html.

Missing as well was variation of solar and cosmic radiation intensities and atmospheric and surface concentrations of radiation absorbers and reflectors.

Another omission is the variation due to sporadic geothermal effects.

My guess is these may be discussed in separate reports? ...or pehaps they fall into the realm of climatological ignorance

What Makes an Elder? :A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

What Makes an Elder? :A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Missing as well was variation of solar and cosmic radiation intensities and atmospheric and surface concentrations of radiation absorbers and reflectors.

Another omission is the variation due to sporadic geothermal effects.

My guess is these may be discussed in separate reports? ...or pehaps they fall into the realm of climatological ignorance

Hi, Ron,It has been so long since this thread was active that I'm not sure now whether you looked at the report which was newest back then or the one that is newest now. The latest one that looks at all the physical factors is the 2013 WG1 report:"Working Group I contribution provides a comprehensive assessment of the physical science basis of climate change. The report includes a detailed assessment of climate change observations throughout the climate system; dedicated chapters on sea level change, biogeochemical cycles, clouds and aerosols, and regional climate phenomena; extensive information from models, including near-term and long-term climate projections; and a new comprehensive atlas of global and regional climate projections for 35 regions of the world." It's currently the third one down this page - http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm.But, as the (good) links in your follow-up post illustrate, the issues have not been forgotten or swept under the rug. If you want to look in on the very latest discussion on (almost) any of these topics, go to http://www.realclimate.org and click on the links under "Categories" in the side-bar (and the "comments" on each post are almost as valuable as the posts themselves - regulars there are very well informed people, many of them eminent climate scientists, letting everyone kibitz their discussions and join in if we want.

What Makes an Elder? :A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Thanks, Ron,Important steps in the right direction - and that's good - but with a couple of cautions: (1) The Republicans have been doing their utmost to block everything Obama wants to do, just because he wants to do it and he's their opposition. They will certainly oppose this, too, and we just have to hope he can still push it through. (2) As Greenpeace said here http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/american-doomsday-white-house-warns-climate-catastrophes-n98011, “While President Obama has taken some important steps to address climate change at home, his administration is undermining that progress by ignoring the huge amounts of carbon pollution that would accompany the fossil fuel industry’s plan to export coal, liquefied natural gas and oil abroad. Climate change is a global crisis which will only be made worse by extracting and exporting fossil fuels, whether it’s fracked gas from Appalachia, coal strip-mined from Montana, or oil drilled from the Arctic.”

Incidentally, the link in the first paragraph of that news report gets you a pdf of the whole 841 pages of the National Climate Assessment - DO NOT click on it if you have a slow connection!

What Makes an Elder? :A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Hear we go again! Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get, okay?I'm sure you know that, Ron, but it's either a new idea to Tom Blumer or he's deliberately being deceitful.In this particular case, lake levels have been falling because of climate change and have come back up a bit because of last winter's weather - as the quote in the article says:

Scientists say the reversal of fortunes for the lakes is partly a result of the most bone-chilling winter in memory for many Midwesterners. The thick and long-lasting ice cover on the lakes kept the water colder and slowed evaporation. Heavy snowfall and a rainy spring allowed the lakes to make even more gains.

In fact (but do NOT hold your breath waiting for Tom Blumer to say this, since you will definitely die) the lake levels are actually going up temporarily because of climate change, at least as a contributing factor, since climate change drives extreme weather events and "the most bone-chilling winter in memory" was one of them.

What Makes an Elder? :A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Kim: "In fact (but do NOT hold your breath waiting for Tom Blumer to say this, since you will definitely die) the lake levels are actually going up temporarily because of climate change, at least as a contributing factor, since climate change drives extreme weather events and "the most bone-chilling winter in memory" was one of them."

Yes. I can see it going either way. Ironically, if we have more water in the atmosphere due to global warming, we get more snow, which cools in two ways: 1) snow reflects more light back into the atmosphere, and 2) if there are no clouds the light radiates into space causing even more global cooling, unless there are more clouds due to more water evaporating into the atmosphere due to global warming, which clouds retain the heat (infrared) reflected from the snow and retained by dark water surfaces, because ice melted in the winter from global warming , ....which causes more water vapor to evaporate into the atmosphere... which cloud tops reflect more light into space causing cooling....and....the polar bear population has increased, which white fur reflects light back into space..... ...ad nauseum...and etc.

Hopefully I will be dead, or at least brain dead in a decade or two and won't have to witness the results either way.

What Makes an Elder? :A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.